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drDugan writes "BitTorrent, Inc. announced this morning that they have launched a partnership with the Khan Academy to distribute open education videos. They launched with more than 2,000 videos, covering high school and college level curriculum, across science, math, history, finance and test prep. All of the videos are free to download and open licensed with Creative Commons."

It's all a ploy by the superhumans to undermine the US economy. The *AAs are our only remaining hope. Let's hope Congress will do the right thing and empower them to put an end to the BT villainy that has persisted for too long.

OK, that's great and I highly encourage it. But just for my own edification -- why would I choose to download this stuff from bittorrent when I can just go get it on-demand from a unicast stream?

I'm sure there will be corner cases where this proves very useful, and should free providers decide to cut services and make it difficult for Kahn to publish, then it will definitely come in handy, but... I'm failing to see the "big deal" here.

Khan Academy is distributing a large number of moderately large files (short videos, so not huge) to a lot of users, which means they probably have rather high bandwidth costs. Downloading from them costs them money. Downloading from BitTorrent doesn't, and should not be much, if at all, slower if there are enough seeds.

Places like rural Pakistani schools (where the Khan academy is aiming for etc.) don't really have broadband. If you can torrent it from a cybercafe and then bring it with you to a classroom on a USB stick, that's great.

I think the idea is to enable non-profit organizations to download the source videos, put them on CDs/DVDs or what have you, and then distribute them to parts of the world that don't have internet access. You have to remember that there are about 1.5 billion people with internet access, which means you're excluding more than 3/4 of the world's population when you only offer online streaming. It also gives you the ability to convert them to DVD video, which means you don't even need a computer to view them.

This is the first time I've thought, "wow, I could set up BitTorrent for a week/month and fill up a drive of stuff that will have lasting value to my family". Why stream it on demand, if you can download it ahead of time, effectively having a local cache that will not lose its educational value in five or likely even ten years?

Why stream it on demand, if you can download it ahead of time, effectively having a local cache that will not lose its educational value in five or likely even ten years?

When the subject is art appreciation, a Free textbook can teach only about works whose authors died before January 1, 1941. Anything newer, and the copyright owners of the works discussed in the textbook will demand phone-home DRM.

Because what 95% of home users do is download. The people that want to upload are rare... of course, I'm happy since my 1.5mb down DSL service has a 384k up, much better than the local cable co with 3 down and 128k up

The MPAA/RIAA/BPI etc. have chosen to ignore the established legitimate uses for BitTorrent and other P2P technologies. They would also prefer to pretend the Free Software, Open Source, Creative Commons and all of those other free-as-in-speech, free-as-in-freedom, independent, do-it-for-ourselves-thank-you-very-much stuff does not exist.

They think that by not mentioning any of this that "normal people" will remain ignorant.

They think that by not mentioning any of this that "normal people" will remain ignorant.

And it seems to work, too. I've come across quite a few people on random websites that believed that bittorrent is used entirely by 'pirates' (technologically illiterate people, of course). Not only were they ignorant, but they were stubborn in holding onto this belief.

There's a DVD that a well respected individual made on the subject of bodybuilding - Over 11 hours of material. I can only imagine how much time he actually spent on it.

It was first only put up on a single website and youtube for download/streaming (he isn't charging anything for it). After finding out about this, I immediately threw it up on piratebay (with his permission) using DHT and an open bittorent tracker. It's a Win Win. Way more r

So why do we have all these highly intelligent expensive professors wasting their time standing in front of hundreds of students in a lecture hall reciting their teaching script like a human video projector? Let the best lecturers in the country make videos and let the students send in questions and assemble a frequently asked questions list and then put those professors to work doing research for the benefit of humanity.

Because teaching itself both builds character and strengthen your knowledge in your field. Because that human "video projector" is a human, readily able to take questions at any given time during the lecture.

I'm not saying anything against video lectures. These things are great and it helps to open up and spread information around for the benefit of all. But they're not the same thing. They can be a substitute, but they're not for everybody. Some of use need those human video projectors to get through our education. Some of use need a mix of both.

I think the professor's knowledge would be strengthened more by studying deeper or more broadly or by research, rather than designing or delivering lectures. And professors could be made available to answer questions at any given time that students are watching the videos as well. Many questions should not distract and waste the time of many other students anyway. If the question is a good question, it should be included in the FAQ or incorporated into the video lecture. Why do you need a live lecturer to g

Have you tried explaining upper-level concepts to lower-level students? It is very hard, and requires you to really think about the relationships between things. I would argue it is actually a benefit to teach in the exact subject area you are researching, as it would help clarify concepts to yourself as you go along. And it does actually happen that a student asks a question that you've never considered before (either a completely new idea, or something you personally glossed over but the student caught),

You're concentrating on the benefits of lecturing but not fairly balancing the costs. If you're doing a good job for your students, then you're spending a huge number of hours designing and reciting lectures. One of the things that is highly beneficial for research is for researchers to expand their knowledge into quite different fields, e.g. a physicist studying sociology for a change. Such expansion of knowledge would likely be of greater benefit than reviewing and explaining what you already know to some

Professors would continue to mentor graduate students and wouldn't be forbidden to give open lectures about topics that really interest them. TAs working in shifts could respond through online chats about recorded material. Then professors might have time to teach English-style tutorials with one or a few intermediate students.

I don't disagree that teaching makes professors stronger. But at the same time, we could lower the cost of education while educating far more people if we had more holograms like Alfred Lanning from I, Robot.

I don't disagree that teaching makes professors stronger. But at the same time, we could lower the cost of education while educating far more people if we had more holograms like Alfred Lanning from I, Robot.

You forget the part where quality is also decreased. The vast majority of my professors have been far better than the best khan academy videos. Oddly enough, my most helpful professors were actually the best researchers as well... top names in the field who took the time to interact with students, even in large lecture halls.

Instead of comparing a weak video, I'll cover one of the topics I feel Khan Academy covers very well: two-tailed vs. one-tailed tests in Stats. Khan Academy gives a great illustration of working through the problem, and tries to touch on the "why", but it doesn't compare to the in-person experience I had.

My experience with it was in an ~300-person lecture hall class. Despite this, the professor took multiple questions, calling on students by name, and reconfigured his approach when he realized where peop

It's one guy though (Khan that is) but he reaches thousands if not millions.

Your professor may be brilliant, but how many can he hope to reach in the same amount of time? 300 per class, 2 classes per semester and 2 semesters per year? 1.2K? ~2K per year?

Why couldn't your professor post a guest video to Khan or youtube? Lesson titled "Professor XYZ from ABC University on two-tailed vs. one-tailed tests on in relation Political Science considerations"? Do the lesson then you could also have a supplementar

Khan actually agrees with you. He encourages using the information gathered by the exercises to pair those who are doing well on a concept with those who are struggling. This tutoring lets everyone build character and strengthen knowledge, not just the instructor. If any students are still struggling, the instructor can focus their instruction to just those students and just those topics. They have more time to answer questions because they aren't spending a majority of their time giving passive lecture

I'm a professor. I tell my students about Khan Academy and provide links to it. I'm teaching a relatively advanced course for which there's no good online substitute that I'm aware of. But someday there may be. And when there is, I'll hopefully be able to delegate to online learning the part that fits the online learning model, and concentrate on the part that doesn't.

And if everything is someday subsumed by online learning or its successor, well, things change. It's very hard on the people and institutions

I think you are suggesting that we should do away with colleges and universities. If that's the case, then I'm going to have to disagree with you. I'm currently a college student and while I think it's overly expensive, I do think it is valuable nonetheless. What I get from college is more than just listening to lectures and doing homework. I get the opportunity to interact with highly intelligent people who specialize in the kind of work that I would someday like to do. I also get to interact with a w

I think you are suggesting that we should do away with colleges and universities. If that's the case, then I'm going to have to disagree with you. I'm currently a college student and while I think it's overly expensive, I do think it is valuable nonetheless. What I get from college is more than just listening to lectures and doing homework. I get the opportunity to interact with highly intelligent people who specialize in the kind of work that I would someday like to do. I also get to interact with a wide variety of people who share the same interests that I do through student organizations. These opportunities would be lost, for the worse in my opinion, if college were to be completely eliminated.

Exactly. Where would all those 18 year old coeds go to get drunk and have threesomes with random strangers?

I think you are suggesting that we should do away with colleges and universities. If that's the case, then I'm going to have to disagree with you. I'm currently a college student and while I think it's overly expensive, I do think it is valuable nonetheless. What I get from college is more than just listening to lectures and doing homework. I get the opportunity to interact with highly intelligent people who specialize in the kind of work that I would someday like to do. I also get to interact with a wide variety of people who share the same interests that I do through student organizations. These opportunities would be lost, for the worse in my opinion, if college were to be completely eliminated.

Human interaction? You're interacting with humans right now. The internet is filled with people who are intelligent and open to conversation (and vice versa, as in college).

Your tuition for college essentially pays for an evaluation/validation of your knowledge (your degree) and a presentation of information (professor lectures + powerpoints) if you wanted to get down to it. Office hours are wholly dependent on institute police. I'm also a college student as well.

Different does not mean better. Your original argument implied that interaction fully justified the existence of colleges. I was simply saying that this interaction isn't as precious as I take it you mean to be. Chance meetings aside, I think the merit of college is the context. Everyone is there for a reason, a purpose, and a drive. And we are all willing to plunge ourselves in debt to get what we want.

That's what I value as a college student. My interactions are great, but I can find it online. Wha

I agree that different does not necessarily mean better. It wasn't my intention to imply otherwise. My original argument was meant to be against the idea that college is a waste of time because it's just a bunch of professors standing in front of a lecture hall full of students. I was merely using the social interactions that one experiences as an example of something else that can be gained by attending college. There are certainly other benefits to going to college that I think justify their existence

Yes, interactions online aren't the same as social interactions. Online interactions are more valuable because it's easier and more convenient for me to interact with those at my intelligence level and with the same goals than those I might find in my own geographic area. In-person interactions are limited by geography, time constraints, etc. Online interactions have no such issues.

maybe, but then you have trolls, people online who fake having knowledge and credibility, etc. Forums are a terrible place to learn and youtube is definitely not the peer-reviewed science that journals and actual college work can put out.

Those are some of the advantages that online interactions have over face to face interactions, although I disagree with a couple of the ones you listed which I'll get to shortly. However, face to face interactions also have advantages that online interactions do not have. Face to face interactions allow instant feedback. When I post something on Slashdot or a similar forum, at the very least I have to wait a few minutes for a response and often times I have to wait longer or I simply don't get a response

Face to face interaction is different than digital interaction. College is not about the validation of your knowledge, but a stepping stone to things you want to do in the future. If you use your time in college properly, you will come away with a base network of contacts that will help in your future endeavors. The education you receive is not particularly unique, but if you've made the right choice in university you can get plugged in to groups you otherwise would not be able to. College, like life, is about networking.

And yes, even with your fellow students. Today they are just like you, ten years from now they could open doors.

That's not right, people shouldn't be going college for all the friends they can be making that could raise their social status. They shouldn't wholly rely on a system where they look try to get friends in high places. People ought to earn their careers by their merits and deeds. Their knowledge and resume.

Of course face to face interaction is nice and has differences from digital interaction, and making friends in college is a great thing, but we do it for the people not the places they can take us. And ag

Thats nice. In the real world knowing someone who works in the same field as you do can mean the difference between walking into your new office/cubicle 3 weeks after graduation or spending 18 months flipping burgers while you send out your resume to couple thousands of shops all over the US.

. I get the opportunity to interact with highly intelligent people who specialize in the kind of work that I would someday like to do. I also get to interact with a wide variety of people who share the same interests that I do through student organizations. These opportunities would be lost, for the worse in my opinion, if college were to be completely eliminated.

Join a professional organization(IEEE or similar), a hackerspace, or something like FIRST. Go to cons.

Let's face it, most classes could be taught by lecture with a live human audience for the first recording (those people will get most of the obvious questions that the professor answers over and over and over and over) and teaching assistants.

But, then you wouldn't need the professor again.

It's like newspaper columnists. When we had local papers you needed them.

But with national news media available, you really only need a dozen or so columnists in each area. Every one else is mostly redundant.

You could literally have a dozen college calculus teachers in the entire world.

Lowering the cost of providing calculus by 90%.

Same for most other undergraduate courses.

Only courses where the students actually need to talk interactively with the professor (very few) need human professors.

Below university level (Up to eighteen years old) the majority of the cost of schooling isn't really in education. It's in keeping the little brats under control. Enough staff to watch them, break up the fights, keep them paying attention to learning rather than playing games, chatting or stareing into space. Then the cost of assessment, testing and such - because it's not enough to understand a subject. The pupils also need to be able to prove their understanding in the easily-demonstrated and consistant f

I don't know about you, but I couldn't learn calculus by just picking up a book or watching a video. I needed interaction with a teacher to hammer out the fine points.

Also, there's nothing more boring in the world than watching a canned lecture. There are students out there who need the interaction with a teacher just to stay engaged in the class in the first place.

Not to mention, if there isn't a teacher present, who's going to stop all the spit balls from flying?

Also, there's nothing more boring in the world than watching a canned lecture.

That sounds to me like you're claiming that noninteractive TV is boring. Yet in fact, it isn't boring to the majority, or it wouldn't draw advertisers. It's all in the presentation: see Beakman, Bill Nye, or anything on Discovery Networks.

I'm a cs student and I've watched video lectures as well as attended live lectures. Just like live music and recorded music, there's a place for both to coexist.
From a student's perspective:
Pro-live:
I can ask questions
I'm more inclined to pay attention
I have to get out of bed
I meet other students
I meet professors
the audio and video quality is (usually) better
Pro-recorded:
I can schedule lectures according to my life, instead of the opposite
I have a wider selection of professors and lect

That's more a problem with the model than the practice. A good instructor is well worth attending. The problem is that there's a lot of ones which aren't qualified and or are not doing their jobs properly.

The Khan Academy has its strengths, but ultimately if you're not the type of learner that they're focusing on it's a complete waste. Which is the point, some people really do need to have an instructor in the room to learn.

I don't think it's a complete waste if you're not the A/V type of learner - I don't see Kahn Academy as a replacement for teachers and schools, I see it as a supplement / tool for learning ahead (parents can use K-A to teach their kids math and science over the summer between school years, students can use it as refreshers on old topics or ways to clarify topics they're currently studying).

Self refresher: I could probably learn enough Controls to teach a course on it, but after a year my Control skills probably wouldn't be up to where they were.If I taught a course on controlls every semester, varying between 200 level courses and 500 level courses. My controls knowledge would be very sharp and I'd be able to do research.

I've seen professors get stumped by questions in all ranges of classes, figure out the answer and come back. Now everyone in the class knows and the next time that it comes u

No teacher worth a damn is just reading a script, even when they're teaching a class of 1000,,,

When I give a lecture, the students are feeding me information at the same time I'm feeding them. When I see a class filled with gray hair, I know I can get away with a Jerry Garcia reference. That won't work if I'm looking at kids wearing t-shirts from the latest Disney TV show. Am I getting silence because I have the class in rapt attention, or is it just the lull before the snoring starts? Are the frowns and f

I'm in grad school at the same university where I got my bachelors. They've set it up now so that professors just need to click a button on the computer in the classroom and it records all audio and anything projected onto the board (powerpoint, overhead, video, etc) - these are then automatically posted online. It's great because it allows an easy review of the lecture, to see the professor work out examples again, and if you miss class you can still get every last bit of the lecture. However, it's not

A professor who's good in his field is well known in the area (potentially the country / global industry) and thus, if they see you are a good student, will recommend you for a job (as in an ACTUAL job, not an internship). Your bitterness implies that you're a poor student and thus no one would recommend you for jobs.

Believe me, as a not-so-expensive teacher in India, who has been unsuccessfully experimenting with Distance Education for quite some time, I can tell you that a watching a video is only one part of the story. The ability to feel the pulse of the audience, to take a difficult question and change the pace and style of the delivery are very important. Canned video is certainly better when nothing else is available but a human teacher cannot be replaced with a recording.

Glad you asked! Nothing else but the absolute minimum for a teaching videos. The torrent was made to be as small as possible (29 GB) using only the most efficient and smallest video and audio formats possible.

Format: Blu-ray video only. You will need a burner to play the video.

Resolution: 1080p video, 7.1 Dolby DTS audio.

Bitrate: video at 40 Mbit/s and audio at 24.5 Mbit/s.

Codecs are MPEG-4 AVC for video and DTS-HD (Lossless) for audio.

This should answer your specific questions. I must say its spectacular.

Could you make this torrent source available any where else? My interest in using torrents is to avoid the block that my country puts on khanacademy.org, but if you torrent is on there too, I can't get to that either.

I create a new torrent torrent from time to time to include the newest videos and stop seeding the last torrent at the same time, that's why I don't add the torrent anywhere else, you can find the latest torrent in the link in my above comments and talks about it here [google.com]. If you can't get to it, I'd suggest asking your ISP or your governments why they block it and try to change their decision, or use a proxy to get to it or ask a friend from another country to e-mail you the torrent.

I am only a lowly IT technician. But I think I may be able to put a word in with the science faculty. Teachers like to show the occasional video in class to shut the children up while they get some marking done.

At a time when so many things are wrong in this world, Khan Academy is helping countless people improve their lives through education. The help of BitTorrent brings this to even more people. Truly awesome and many thanks!

I feel the need to point out that while it is great, you're somewhat exaggerating the benefit. It's not useful if you haven't gotten a basic education and if you don't have broadband, which pretty much shuts out the people that are most in need right there.

I do support what they're doing because free or affordable education is a good thing for everybody. Except perhaps for educators, but since this really doesn't hit everybody I'm not too worried going into education.

I would argue that torrent distribution is even more important for those without broadband... because eventually you will receive the data. With more conventional methods, auto-resuming is more complicated. With torrents it's automatic.

I disagree. Places like Pakistan are where the Khan academy is targeted. According to Wikipedia's statistics [wikipedia.org], the majority have finished primary school and thus are receptive enough to understand the material being laid out in the basic Khan academy lectures. I'd hope the academy expands its video base to help the millions who haven't passed the equivalent of 5th grade, but I don't know if distance learning works at such a basic level.

With all the scrutiny that file sharing providers are under these days, it's a good idea for someone like BT to immerse themselves and become associated with something legitimate like this. Hopefully it will make some judge later down the line think twice before having them shut down for illegal sharing.

I was inspired by Khan Academy to launch my first ever open source project. It replicates a little math tool Khan used to demonstrate slope-intercept in his videos, it's called eGraph. It also allows people to design, print, or project graphs in a classroom and it has a nice demo featuring the slope-intercept equation. When I saw the equation "animated" while changing the variables it instantly sunk in. During that time I was already building eGraph to design and print custom graph sheets, so I added the sl

I don't have a lot of spare free time to sit down and watch the videos. I would LOVE it if Khan Academy would release the lessons as understandable lecture/ audio podcasts as well. This way one could just listen to the material instead of needing the visual cues as well. I understand a lot of the subject matter can't be easily explained without visual cues, but right now if you where to just take the audio from the videos...you'd be lost as to what's going on. Podcasts please, not just a release of the yout

I feel like some comments are missing the point. I think Khan Academy works best in conjunction with some kind of normal curriculum. Repetitio Est Mater Studiorum as the saying goes. Khan Academy provides a way to hear the same thing in a voice different from one's instructor. It also solves the general problem of losing concentration during a lecture, and not being able to adequately replay the concept in a derivative way as opposed to the way many textbooks explain concepts that build on other concept